


Look, But Don't Touch

by morrezela



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An X-Men Comic Fusion: Genevieve is a mutant who can’t touch other people’s skin without absorbing their memories, personalities and powers. That isn’t keeping Danneel from being a rather persistent admirer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look, But Don't Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine, so not mine. The people mentioned in here? I wish them all the best in their personal and professional lives and hope that they make many, many more movies and TV Shows. None of this is real, should be construed as real or should be taken as what I wish was real.
> 
> The X-Men belong to Marvel, Fox and whatever media outlets happen to license the characters.
> 
> Warnings: Superhero style violence, genderswap for some X-Men characters. (Gambit is portrayed by a woman, etc.)
> 
> A/N: This story was written for the 2013 genteensybang. The artwork was done by kindofawkward and can be found at [her livejournal.](http://kindofawkward.livejournal.com/5257.html)
> 
> Beta provided by laurathelurker. All mistakes that you find are my own.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Quick Reference Character List:  
Genevieve = Rogue  
Danneel = Gambit  
Misha = The Beast  
Jensen = Cyclops  
Jared = Jean Grey  
Chad Michael Murray = Iceman  
Christian Kane = Wolverine

~~~~~~~~~~~

Few people ever realize how much they touch others. Genevieve does. She is tortured with it constantly. It angsts her to no end. It makes Danneel’s light-hearted yet dirty flirtations all the more annoying. It is like the woman has no off switch. She flat out refuses to accept Gen’s pain and problems as the insurmountable obstacles that they are. Plus – there is the whole gay thing. Danni is hot. Everybody knows it.

But Gen isn’t gay. She is pretty sure she isn’t. Mostly.

Okay. So her sum total of sexual experience is a kiss that ruined her life when she was thirteen, and her mutant condition keeps her from further experimentations. That doesn’t make her not straight. She thinks. Then again, straight women don’t stare at Danni’s hips like she does.

But that’s just jealousy, right? Gen has a great looking body, but Danni is built like a lingerie model. Even mutant women with their mutant metabolism and superpowers are prone to a little envy.

Or, or maybe it’s all of Danni’s flattery going to Gen’s ego. For all that Gen can turn heads when she goes out in public, she doesn’t get many direct compliments. Her mannerisms are carefully crafted to deter sexual pursuit. It is just easier to keep people an arm’s length away when they don’t come close in the first place.

Distance is important when a girl’s skin can absorb people’s memories and any mutant powers that happen to be lurking beneath the surface of their skin.

Of course, the whole other people’s memories thing is another reason why Gen is probably not really attracted to Danni. She is fairly good now at separating out ‘Gen’ from Ms. Marvel or whoever nowadays, but Gen can’t say for certain that other people’s memories and powers are the only attributes that her funky mutant skin has stolen over the years. Why wouldn’t it steal sexuality as well?

Of course Danni’s answer when Gen had tried sharing that epiphany had been, “So you going to quit flyin’ now? Because it didn’t used to be a part of you?”

Gen hasn’t let on just how much Danni’s words got to her, but she has a suspicion that Danni knows anyway. Danni is too good at figuring things out - a bit too good. Gen doesn’t like to insinuate things, but she isn’t going to be surprised if someday they find a gibbering redhead sobbing on the floor because she can’t keep the voices out. Freaking telepaths are everywhere.

Jared usually tells her that she’s paranoid when she starts thinking about Danni hiding some of her mutant powers from them. So it’s a relief when all he says is, “Hey,” in that Den Mother way of his when Gen goes into the kitchen. He is baking cupcakes – with his mind.

Gen might be a virgin, but she knows why all the boys would want a piece of that. Though admittedly she isn’t quite sure if it is Jared’s baking skills or the kinky possibilities that telekinesis brings to the mix.

Jared grins at her like he knows what she is thinking. He probably does. Freaking telepaths are annoying in addition to being everywhere.

“I hate Danneel,” Gen sulks as she hops up on the counter. Insinuating that Jared reads her mind will only get her the puppy look of doom complete with the scandalized, “I would never,”and wrinkled hound dog forehead. She has better things to do with her time – namely pout over Danneel’s continuing admiration of her.

“Chris hates Jensen. It’s why I have to keep them by their short and curlies. Finding my husband and my unrequited love interest going at it would seriously suck,” Jared opines.

Gen thinks that he is trying to be sage instead of creepy. Then again, she was taken in and partially raised by a supervillain in her teens. Her points of view can be a little skewed.

“I’m just saying that sometimes ‘hate’ is more sexual frustration than, you know, ‘hate,’” Jared clarifies.

“I’m still trying to wipe the image of Chris and Jensen going it out of my mind,” Gen replies, stealing a finger full of raw cupcake batter as a floating mixing bowl whizzes by. It tastes a little funky with the added tang of the leather of her glove as she licks it into her mouth.

“Why?” Jared asks, oblivious to her cured hide problems. “That is an awesome mental picture to have. High quality porn.”

“Yeah,” Gen makes sure her voice conveys just how wrong she thinks Jared is about that.

“And you think you aren’t gay,” Jared mock scoffs.

Gen winces and looks at the floor.

“Oh,” Jared pauses and all his floating cooking supplies freeze with him, “you know that I’m not pointing fingers, right?”

“I am not gay,” Gen snaps.

“Uh-huh,” Chris grunts as he stalks into the kitchen and the conversation uninvited. He checks out Jared’s ass as he grabs a ‘brewski’ from the fridge. “Darlin’, you got a lot to learn about life and bad girls.”

“And what, pray tell, would that be?” Gen asks icily.

Chris leers at Jared’s rear some more. “That they’re fun.”

“You should go find one then,” Jensen tells Chris as he saunters into the room. Chad likes to say that Jensen is bow legged because of the giant stick shoved up his ass. Jared usually grins and agrees when he catches Chad saying that.

Chris flips Jensen off. Jensen clenches his jaw. Behind his ever present ruby quartz glasses, Gen is positive that Jensen is glaring at Chris. Sometimes she wonders if Jensen sees red every time he looks in Chris’s direction. Well, redder than the perpetual tint that his power controlling glasses give everything.

Jensen isn’t one to be one-upped, not even by flippant loners with Napoleon complexes. He leans up and tugs Jared’s head down to steal a kiss that makes Gen tingle with envy.

“Get a room,” Chris snarls.

Jared pushes Jensen away, a reproving look on his face. But he doesn’t push Jensen far – never far. Jared and Jensen have been together ‘since forever.’ Gen sometimes thinks that Chris only pines after Jared because he likes the pain of being attracted to a man he can never have.

“This is a room,” Jensen dryly responds. Jared might be sensitive to Chris and his feelings, but Jensen isn’t.

“There’s a lady present,” Chris growls.

Gen laughs. “Sugar, I ain’t been a lady since I broke into my first government facility.”

“Not what I heard you tell Gambit,” Chris retorts.

“Well, she needed to be put in her charming, smarmy place. Girl shouldn’t be referring to herself by her codename all the time anyway.”

“Says the woman who didn’t refer to herself as anything else for over a year,” Jensen mumbles.

Jared swats his husband with a floating wooden spoon.

“That is spousal abuse!” Jensen cries.

“You are such an uptight asshole,” Jared says fondly.

Chris storms out of the kitchen. Jensen looks equal parts triumphant and annoyed. Gen decides then and there that she never wants to get involved with a love triangle. They are so, so messy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, I hear that you went to Jared for love advice,” Danneel says as she plops her overly pretty body down on the couch. Her boobs are on full display, but even they aren’t as prominent as her grin.

“You’re in my personal space,” Gen lectures her.

“Aw, Chere, you wound my heart,” Danneel drawls as she places a delicate, half-glove wearing hand over her literally heaving bosom. There is no way that Gen believes that the whole display isn’t solely for effect.

“What part about ‘can’t touch’ don’t you understand?” Gen asks.

“The part where I’m not supposed to be enticed by that. Gambit loves a challenge.”

“Well, ‘Gambit’ has a split personality. Believe you me, I know all about those,” Gen retorts.

“Meh, third person is fun – a much underappreciated form of the English language,” Danni dismisses with a flirty grin and a flick of her fingers.

“What do you want, Danni?” Gen asks, fiddling with her own gloves and resisting the urge to play with her sleeves to make certain there isn’t any chance of a skin gap occurring.

“Why to take the most beautiful girl in the mansion out to dinner,” Danni replies smoothly, batting her eyelashes coyly. The look is sort of ruined by the fact that her eyes are black and red. Demon eyes aren’t flattering, not even on a woman as sexy as Danni is.

“Really?” Gen doesn’t bother hiding her disbelief. “Because I thought you were trying to…”

The blare of klaxons interrupts her rejoinder. Danneel is already on her feet, mutant gifted agility aiding her as she uses her upward momentum to swing into a run. As fast as her maneuver is, Gen’s powers have all that and then some. It is nothing at all for her to swoop down and pluck Danni up by her armpits while flying towards the command room.

“A bit forward, but I like,” Danni purrs.

Gen pretends that the sound of the air rushing past her ears kept her from hearing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are times when Gen greatly resents her powers. Actually – she greatly resents them ninety-nine percent of the time, but that’s just her ‘natural’ mutation. Her stolen ones, in general, are pretty cool. Flying, invulnerability and super strength can be pretty damned handy, so she doesn’t hate them.

But when a gal’s team is fighting against a mutant whose power is to create ultra-dense slime? Even her permanently borrowed powers aren’t so cool. Sure she can lift the stuff, hurl it or fly it away. No problem. Except that she is covered in warm, organic goo. Oh, and it is opaque white in color – because Chad doesn’t have enough things to snicker over.

Jared, of course, is just floating in the air, hair dancing in the breeze as he holds his fingertips to his temples and moves slime blockades with his mind. A girl could take a picture and slap it in a magazine he looks so picture perfect in his spotless, body hugging uniform.

Jensen and Danneel are a little worse off. They’re using their respective blasting powers on chunks of slime that Chad has been zipping around freezing. The icky substance is exploding out of the way, splintering off into its own special hail storm.

Still, the frozen goo shrapnel they are getting pelted with is nothing compared to being covered in the wet stuff.

“Try to shake off the excess. It is slowing down your turning speeds,” Misha councils over Gen’s communicator.

“You try shakin’ this shit off,” Gen snaps back, heedlessly spinning in the air, heavy globs of slime coming off her body like projectile droplets. One blob looks like it was heading straight for Jared’s perfect hair, but instead of making contact, it bounces off his telekinetic shield. Gen doesn’t bother hiding her spike of disappointment that Jared remains spotless.

“Nice, Rogue,” he mentally chastises her, switching positions inside his bubble to puff out his chest and pose even more dramatically.

“Whatever, Sugah,” Gen smarms back as she dives down to grab another portion of ooze to facilitate the team’s advance. “You sure this is the weakest spot in the barricade, Misha?”

“All scans indicate so, yes. Whoever our fine friend is, he has admirable skill in building slime fortresses.”

“Ain’t got no admiration for a guy kidnapping a girl,” Chris’s voice crackles over the communications line unexpectedly.

Gen has no idea where he went off to or what he was doing. Then again, nobody ever does. Only Jensen ever tries to keep track of Chris. Gen suspects that he only does that because he is the leader, and his leader handbook says he has to.

“Incoming!” Danneel’s voice blares into Gen’s earpiece a second before a wave of blue energy slams into Gen’s stomach.

“Always with my outfits!” she rages as she turns her downward flight spiral around and shoots back up in the air. “Why can’t they put holes in Cyclops’s uniform for once?”

“Be real, Chere. Ain’t nobody want to see that,” Danneel comments.

“Hey!” Jared’s offended thought slithers through each of their brains even as Chris’s chuckle echoes through their intercoms.

“Focus people! Our target obviously has a few friends with him, and that makes this a little more dangerous,” Jensen chastises them. “Rogue, you take Beast over to the west. Gambit, Iceman go east. Jean,” he hesitates, glaring over at his husband. “You… Goddamn, Honey, I know this isn’t the place or time, but you need a better codename.”

“What was that? Grab Wolverine and have illicit affair sex with him?” Jared mind projects snippily.

“You go ahead and do that. Preferably on the south side,” Jensen calmly replies.

“Cyke is so sleeping on the couch tonight,” Iceman chortles inappropriately.

“That leaves you alone with north,” Gen notes.

“I know,” Cyclops agrees. “I’m banking on you all doing your jobs and saving me when they figure that out.”

Despite a general feeling of worry and discontent being broadcast from Jared, nobody objects to the plan. Jensen is the leader for a reason, and sometimes trickery has to come into the equation. Everybody has taken a turn or two at being live bait.

Flying with Misha as a passenger is always a treat. Despite his bulky and hairy nature, he is respectful and doesn’t try copping a feel – unlike some Cajuns that Gen knows.

“Not sure what you’re gonna do with the goo shield,” she says as she sets him down at their assigned location.

“Perhaps I could try it out as hair gel,” Misha muses. “Else, I shall play watchdog as you dive into the impenetrable mass.”

Gen rolls her eyes, but gamely slams her fist into the wall, ripping out a wet chunk even though it would take her forever to actually break through. She knows the point of the exercise is to make it look and sound like they are attacking from all sides. But she doesn’t need to expend all of her energy doing it. She plans on just doing some less than full throttle swings so that she has a bit of pep left for the real fight.

It is a shock to feel something grab hold of her wrist the next time she punches into the wall. At first she thinks it is just the ooze collapsing in on itself, creating some sort of vacuum. But when she tries to pull back, the hold tightens like the coils of a boa constrictor.

“Beast,” she calls over to Misha, “I think we’ve got an issue here.”

Whatever or whoever has hold of her tugs, and Gen leans backwards using equal force so that she can’t be pulled into the white slime. She isn’t sure how she wants to die, but suffocation by heavy, jizz-like substance is not it. Once Misha is close enough to offer better assistance, she heaves backwards, pulling whatever is coiled around her wrist with her.

When her hand clears the slime shield, she isn’t surprised to see a tentacle wrapped around her wrist. The tentacle, though, seems surprised to be outside of the goo shell. It slithers loose of Gen’s wrist, and she misses when trying to grab back onto it.

Thankfully, Misha’s blue furred hand swoops in to seize hold of the tentacle with deceptive strength and an incongruent snarl. He backflips, twisting the tentacle around with him. Gen barely hears the yelp of pain through the barrier, but she still winces in sympathy. Not too much though. After all, it had just been trying to pull her through.

Wrapping her hands around a slightly thicker portion of the tentacle, Gen yanks. Where Misha’s ‘beast’ strength had immobilized her attacker in a game of tug-of-war, Gen’s stolen strength is more than enough to pull the tentacle’s owner through.

“No!” the mutant screamed, “Let me go!” Five other tentacles wave from his back, spraying white goo in all directions. Gobs of it pelt Misha’s blue fur, the heavy weight of the substance pulling skin downwards along with matting his hair.

The team is converging in on the mutant, and Gen is relieved. Not that she couldn’t easily handle the man herself, but the spray is soaking into the fabric of her uniform. The extra weight is causing it to rip farther than it had before, and she doesn’t want to give the world a show.

More importantly, a bare midriff is just as dangerous as a bare hand. Gen does not want to wake up tomorrow morning with jizz tentacles sprouting out of her back. That would be a total weekend killer.

Gambit is glibly flipping through the air, throwing mini projectiles at the mutant that Iceman dubs “Squidward” over their intercoms. Danni, of course, hasn’t been anything but artistically hit by the jizz-goo. It is tugging down the front of her uniform a little, exposing some cleavage, but not in any obscene way. She is using her bo staff like she is pole vaulting. She looks fantastic. It’s disgusting really.

“Drool later,” Chris snarls as he pops up out of nowhere.

“Glad to see you join us, Wolverine,” Jensen’s sarcastic leader voice is in full swing.

“Know you are, Princess,” Chris drawls back before throwing himself into the fray. He pops his long, metal claws out from their hiding place between his knuckles and slices off one of the tentacles as it reaches towards him.

There isn’t time for anybody to do more than express grunts of disgust and disapproval before two more tentacles pop out to replace the severed one.

“Behold the power of Starfish!” the betentacled mutant crows.

“Man, that is the worst codename Gambit has ever heard. You deserve to be beat down for that,” Gambit growls as she swings off a pile of rubble and somersaults in the air, raining kinetically charged playing cards down at their adversary.

The tiny explosions cause Starfish to scream in pain. His slime tentacles wave spastically in the air, causing even more super dense goo to splatter around.

Gen thinks that the team can be excused for not noticing the other, invisible mutant creeping up on them. Jared disagrees, but then again, Jared is the only one still in possession of his powers when he wakes up the next morning. Fucking telekinetics and their fucking shields.

The flight home had been rather uncomfortable. Losing track of a team of unknown mutants was one thing – that happened to them all on a shockingly frequent basis. Having to call in back-up because most of your team got depowered? That had been a hit to Jensen’s pride.

He had been sullenly flying the blackbird back to the mansion, red lasses sitting on the dash of the plane, when he’d done a double take at Jared. Apparently he’d thought something wrong, because they’d had one of their silent – not talking fights in the middle of the cockpit. Gen doesn’t actually remember her parents, but she is pretty sure that watching the two of them telepathically go at it is similar to watching parents duke it out.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Jensen sounds like he is begging. The sound of it makes Gen hesitate as she nears the kitchen. “I just thought you were a redhead,” Jensen continues.

“So what? Now I’m not as attractive to you?” Jared sniffs.

“Jay, Baby, I love you,” Jensen placates. “It was just a moment of surprise is all.”

Gen makes a face and decides to go grab her morning coffee from Misha’s lab instead of the kitchen. Psychic bonds sound all romantic until a girl gets to observe them first hand. One wrong thought at the wrong time, and Jensen goes from fearless leader to groveling puppy lest he face couch exile.

“Lovebirds still fighting?” Chas asks as he hands her a cup. The mug says, “I’m A Sexy Beast,” on the side. As far as Misha’s coffee cup collection goes, it isn’t bad. Gen knows there is one that says, “More hair just gives you more to hang onto,” and one that bestows the wisdom of, “Mutant Cock… It isn’t a myth.”

“I ain’t sure if hearing them fight is better or worse than listening to their mutual adoration society,” Gen answers.

“Worse,” Misha and Chad answer at the same time.

“Then again,” Misha continues, “Chand and I have known them since they met. Nothing tops Jensen’s teenage angst about wanting to bone Jared.”

Gen takes a few sips of coffee, and the world starts to make sense. As she comes around, it finally dawns on her that Misha isn’t covered in blue fur. In fact, the hair he does have is a shockingly normal black color, and his hands are no longer large enough to crack coconuts.

Gen stares at him for a moment, and pretends it is because of his brash words instead of his looks. Seeing Misha without his fur is startling. It is ironic that his obvious humanity is what makes him look weird. At least his eyes are still startlingly blue – otherwise Gen might have reconciliation issues.

“How is Chris?” she asks before her staring gets too obvious.

“Suffering and being alone,” Chad answers with a shrug. “Pretty normal, actually.”

Misha sighs and whacks his friend on the back of his head. “Our dear Wolverine is angry at his lack of mobility. The extra weight from his adamantium skeleton is causing muscle fatigue and joint strain. Without his healing factor to continuously compensate for torn ligaments, he is effectively crippled. I remain optimistic, however, that all of our powers will be restored before the heavy metal poisoning sets in.”

“I’m fine,” Gen blurts out before Misha can use talking about their mutual power outage to segue into talking about her specifically.

Both Chad and Misha look skeptical at her declaration.

“Danni has brown eyes,” she stupidly, stupidly adds, “without the, you know..”

“Creepy mutant gene that makes her look like she’s the spawn of Satan and a really hot stripper?” Chad fills in for her.

Misha slaps him again.

“What? Black and red is only a good look on Ferraris is all I’m saying,” Chad tries to defend himself.

“You’re a pig,” Gen accuses.

“Yeah, well, your hair looks like a skunk,” Chad shoots back lamely.

“Good thing, huh? Wouldn’t want Jared getting all jealous because mon petite has the red hair,” Danni says as she practically slides out of the shadows.

“Not fair!” Chad shouts. “Your mutant agility was supposed to go away.”

Danni smirks at him. “Don’t mistake power for skill. Gambit wasn’t such a good thief because of a few genes, no? She was a very skilled body, especially her fingers,” she concludes as she produces a coffee mug from thin air. It says, “Hotter than the Devil.”

Chad flushes, but he doesn’t apologize. He and Danni don’t get along all that well. Oddly enough, it is because Chad disapproves of Danni’s sleaze factor instead of the other way around.

“You look awfully chipper this morning,” Gen notes, desperate to get a subject change rolling before Danneel and Chad talk to each other long enough to get into an argument.

“Not every day that Gambit can go shopping without sunglass on. Figured I’d see what New York has to offer.”

“Are you actually going to pay for your purchases?” Chad asks.

Danni grins at him. “Such a child.”

“You want some company?” As a conversation ending tactic, it works. Everybody in the room certainly seems stunned.

“Like I would say ‘no’ to such a pretty offer from such a lovely lady,” Danni purrs as she snatches Gen’s still gloved hand and gives the leather a kiss.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’m not sure I should’ve agreed to this,” Gen mumbles as Danneel shoves her into the extra-large dressing room. Somehow going lingerie shopping had not crossed Gen’s mind as a possibility until he was already herded into the store.

“Poor judgment is the best excuse for bad behavior,” Danni dismisses as she starts stripping out of her top. She purposely flashes Gen her boobs, but quickly starts trying on bras, checking herself out in the mirror with a critical eye. She doesn’t look like she is showing off so much as harshly judging the clothing.

While Danni is making faces at the hot pink, leopard print push-up she is trying on, Gen quickly yanks her own shirt and bra off, grabbing the nearest bra and slipping it on. It kind of hurts when she fastens it. All her girl bits smush in uncomfortable ways, and the underwire digs into her sides.

“This sucks,” she pouts. As much as she hates her actual powers, the whole invulnerability thing is a huge plus. She forgets sometimes that high heels hurt and bras can be uncomfortable.

Danneel just tosses a different bra at her. “You’ve been wearing the wrong size.”

Gen is caught between wanting to suspiciously demand how she knows and being happy that Danni grabbed the apparently ‘right’ size for her.

“I notice a lot of things about you, Cherie,” Danni answers her unasked question.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How was shopping?” Jensen asks when Gen works her way down to the kitchen at midnight. She looks over her shoulder to see who he is talking to, because she knows that he isn’t talking to her. Her fearless leader is not one for small talk.

“Y’all aren’t trying to have a shopping intervention, are ya?” she asks as she cautiously enters the room.

Jensen sighs and rubs the back of his neck. He winces and yanks his hand down.

“You okay?” Gen asks, concerned.

“Hickey of doom,” he deadpans.

Gen gapes at him. “You’re not serious.”

He blushes and shrugs. “Jared thinks I have pretty eyes,” he explains. “Then again, he always has.”

“But lacking concussive blasts shooting out at him is a bonus in bed?” Gen guesses.

“It’s more of a kissing around the goggles thing,” Jensen admits. “But apparently their color is really, really pretty too.”

“So what are you doing down here if the two of you made up?” she asks as she digs a yogurt out of the fridge.

“Memorizing my world without wearing rose tinted glasses,” he answers her.

“The kitchen?” Gen tries not to sound judgmental about that, but she doesn’t think she succeeds.

“Jared got tired of me watching him sleep. This room is where I first kissed him.”

“That is… real romantic,” Gen admits.

Jensen awkwardly nods and looks at the table top. It is a new table – purchased just last month because the last one was collateral damage in a fight with an invading mutant force seeking to abduct Chad to make him their ice god. Jensen stares at it like it has significance, and Gen doesn’t doubt that it does. Normal is pretty damned important once you don’t have it anymore.

“I did know I was gay,” Jensen says quietly. “I mean, I guess I knew on some level, but it paled in personal significance to my powers. I wanted, I needed to make a difference in the world. I needed to reclaim something for myself, so I ignored the sexual urges that puberty brought with it to focus on the more pressing and obvious problem of my mutancy.”

Jensen looks up to catch Gen’s eyes. It is weird seeing a pair of eyeballs instead of colored lenses, being able to see emotion there instead of watching just his jaw or his forehead for social cues. “Then Jared walked through the front door, and I couldn’t think of anybody but him. Bastard knew it too. And I knew that he knew, so I figured that he didn’t feel the same way.”

“Obviously not,” Gen points out.

“Obviously,” Jensen agrees. “But Jared was smarter than I was. I was crushing on him for a month before I realized that it was very gay of me and promptly had a freak out about something I’d always known. Spent the next week looking at the professor’s straight porn collection like it would make me not gay.”

“The professor’s?” Gen tries not to sound horrified.

“It was either his or Chad’s, and Chad has shit taste in porn – even the straight kind. Plus the internet hadn’t taken off yet. The modem still shrieked when you dialed up, and it took forever to download images.”

“That is kinda skeezy,” Gen tries not to sound impressed, but she honestly thought Jensen wouldn’t ever think to look at dirty pictures.

“Jared doesn’t stick around because I’m good at my day job,” Jensen says with a wink.

“You’re not telling me this because you’re sleep deprived,” Gen guesses.

“I’m not saying you’re like me,” Jensen begins, “but right now, you’ve only got some old memories bouncing around in your head. You don’t have anybody else’s DNA screwing with you. Sounds like a good time to figure things out to me.”

“Danni…”

“Isn’t about her,” Jensen interrupts. “I love Jared with my whole heart. But if he died? If I was ever done mourning him? I’d be out chasing dick.”

“Oookay,” Gen says, slowly backing up towards the door.

“Just… I’m not as clueless as you might think. I’m not in control of my powers either. I know that tomorrow or the next day, they’ll be back, and my whole world will be red again.”

“I get what you’re saying, but I’ve seen porn before,” Gen tells him.

“Yeah, but without all of the rest of the world’s DNA influencing you?”

“Still have their memories,” Gen points out.

“Doesn’t everybody have those?” Jensen asks.

It isn’t the same thing, and Gen knows Jensen knows that. But he had a point as well. All those absorbed powers are out of her reach right now. Even the memories she has stolen are a dull presence in her mind. She can only recall those memories that she has memories of recalling before.

“You’re the last person I’d ever expect to go tell me to watch porn,” she tells him.

Jensen tips his water bottle at her in mock salute. “Can’t let the troops get lulled into a false sense of security. Got to shake things up sometimes.”

“Right,” Gen says as she turns and leaves. Anything else would be awkward.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“So I don’t like boobs,” Gen blurts out as soon as Danni opens her bedroom door to Gen’s insistent knocking the next afternoon.

A pair of bloodshot, but still brown eyes blink at her. “Okay?”

“Yeah, turns out I’m more of a hip girl,” Gen says with an unpracticed but genuine leer. Danni does have nice hips. It isn’t difficult to perv on them.

Danni doesn’t waste a second in responding with her own dirty grin. “Well then…”

“Still can’t touch,” Gen reminds her. She had bent her toothbrush that morning by exerting too much force. Their powers are returning, and she is not going to gamble with her life or anybody else’s.

“Ah, Cherie, you underestimate the value of spandex, vibrators and a good imagination.”

The words make Gen blush, but still… “Seriously?” she squeaks.

Danni pulls her door open wider and motions her in. “I’m from Louisiana. We like things spicy.”

Gen hesitates for just a second before stepping over the threshold. “Vanilla is overrated anyway,” she says, closing the door behind them.


End file.
